LITMIR.BIZ

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      Silas’s hands were shaking, but he had moved within point-blank range and was about to shoot Jacob through the heart. His finger twitched on the trigger.

      The gun never went off. The muzzle of a rifle poked over the edge of the arroyo, and a bright red blossom opened on Silas’s shirt. He opened his mouth, staggered and fell.

      “Jacob!” Serenity cried. “Are you all right? Is Bonnie—”

      He was distracted for one fatal instant. Leroy scrambled up, dodged Jacob’s reaching hands and fell on top of Silas’s body, snatching at the fallen man’s revolver. His bullet caught Bonnie full in the chest. Serenity screamed, dropped her rifle and threw herself into the arroyo just as Jacob lifted Leroy and tossed him against the rock wall.

      Then there was silence, broken only by Serenity’s quiet sobs.

      Jacob turned slowly, barbwire coiling in his gut.

      Serenity was holding Bonnie in her arms, rocking her gently and singing some kind of lullaby as she wept. She was no longer aware of Jacob at all.

      Jacob crouched where he was, remembering. Remembering Ruth and how he’d found her body, shattered and abused and shot. He had promised to protect her when he’d made his marriage vows, and he’d failed her. He had made himself responsible for Serenity and Bonnie when he’d gone after Leroy and his gang in the arroyo. He’d failed them, too.

      The almost inaudible crunch of soft footsteps above alerted him to the other woman’s approach. She knelt and looked into the arroyo, black hair falling across her face. Her dark-eyed gaze brushed over Jacob and his naked body, dismissed him, and settled on the women below. She jumped lightly to the ground and knelt beside Serenity.

      Jacob felt the shock of recognition through the dull haze of his despair. Zora had to be half Indian, probably Apache by the looks of her, but she was at least half werewolf, as well. And she recognized the wolf in him, too.

      Right now, though, she wasn’t interested in anything she and Jacob might have in common. She put her arm around Serenity and spoke low in Apache, a murmur of farewell and sorrow.

      The last thing either of them wanted, he knew, was his commiseration. He made sure that Hunsaker and Silas were dead, then crouched beside Leroy to keep an eye on him, averting his face from the women’s suffering.

      After a while the weeping stopped, and Serenity lowered Bonnie’s body gently to the ground. She smoothed the woman’s flyaway red hair from her face, removed her own coat and laid it over Bonnie’s chest to cover the ugly wound.

      “We’ll take her home,” she said. She rose and glanced around the arroyo at Leroy and the dead men, her face expressionless, eyes red-rimmed and empty. She turned to Jacob.

      “Is Leroy dead?” she asked

      “Miss Campbell,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

      She looked right through him. “Is he dead?”

      “No. But I swear to you—”

      “Why didn’t you kill him?”

      “I’m taking him in,” Jacob said. “He’ll suffer a lot more waiting to be hanged than he would if I killed him now.”

      Even to his own ears, the words sounded cold and indifferent.

      Serenity began to shake. “He is not going anywhere,” she whispered.

      “I will do it,” Zora said. Her voice was as soft as her tread, but her eyes were hard. She pulled a knife from its sheath at her belt.

      Jacob rose to stand between Leroy and the Apache woman. “I can’t let you do that.”

      “He killed Bonnie,” she said.

      No fire, no hatred. Just simple fact. That was enough for Zora. But Serenity might still be reasoned with.

      “He has to be brought to trial,” he said. “You talked once about women making the West civilized. I aim to keep it that way.”

      Serenity stared at him as if he’d gone loco. “Civilized?” she repeated blankly. “What is civilized about any of this?”

      Nothing. And that made the law even more important. No matter how much he might wish he could kill Leroy here and now, the Code wouldn’t let him. Killing in self-defense and to protect innocents was sometimes necessary, but he’d sworn years ago never to murder a man in cold blood, no matter what the reason. To do any different would make him just like those he hunted.

      One slip would send him plummeting into the pit.

      “I’m sorry,” he said again, meaning it with all his heart. “But the law is the law. I promise he’ll pay the price for what he’s done.”

      Serenity’s shaking had stopped, but he knew she wasn’t half ready to concede. “You want him to go to trial?” she asked. “We can arrange that right here at Avalon.”

      The idea took him aback. “Miss Campbell,” he said, “this is no place—”

      “He would have a chance to tell his side of the story,” she said.

      As if that would matter. Serenity had held Bonnie in her arms as the life had drained out of her friend. Her devotion had gone deeper than Jacob had guessed. There wouldn’t be even a semblance of justice in what she was proposing.

      He looked at Bonnie’s body. She’d been a good woman. She might not be suffering, but Serenity and the others would go on grieving. Revenge wouldn’t ease those feelings, no matter what they thought. Revenge was a disease that ate you up inside and left nothing but a rotted soul.

      “I can’t let you do it, Miss Campbell,” he said.

      He’d underestimated Serenity and her women when he’d first come to Avalon. He should have known better than to do it again.

      Serenity pointed her rifle at his chest.

      “I’m sorry, Mr. Constantine,” she said. “Zora?”

      The other woman advanced on Jacob, knife in hand.

      Jacob held his ground.

      “You won’t hurt me,” he said.

      Serenity’s eyes were clouded with the blindness of grief, but he could see the battle roaring inside her. She had no desire to threaten him, but she saw no other choice.

      She didn’t trust the law to take care of Leroy. She didn’t trust Jacob to finish what he’d started. And maybe she blamed herself for Bonnie’s death, for not taking better care of her people.

      That was something Jacob understood. When he’d first set out to track Ruth’s murderers—killers who had taken pains to leave obvious evidence of their identities—the trail had already gone cold and he hadn’t known where they’d taken refuge. He’d thought his need to kill them outright would never fade, no matter how long he searched.

      But it had. He’d seen the pit opening up in front of him and had stepped back just in time. He’d found the Code. It had restored his sanity and given him new purpose. Serenity didn’t have the Code, or anything like it, to make her path clear.

      And he knew there was something darker behind her need for violent retribution.

      Zora moved closer to Jacob, her gaze never leaving his. She knew just how dangerous he could be. He knew he could overpower her, but she or Serenity might get hurt in the struggle.

      That was a risk he didn’t want to take. He would go along for now, but he wouldn’t make any promises he couldn’t keep.

      “All right,” he said. “You mind if I get dressed?”

      Serenity blinked, as if she hadn’t noticed his state of undress until that moment. She flushed and gestured with the rifle. With Zora right behind him, Jacob returned to his pile of clothes and, ignoring his long johns, pulled on his trousers, careful to avoid

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